During the recovery operation the VM is recovered to the state when the snapshot was created. The different complex application including Active Directory, Microsoft SQL Servers, Microsoft Exchange servers depends on how the snapshot was created and if there were any errors creating the snapshot inside the virtual machine then the data that was backed up can be not consistent that can lead to the problem with application after recovering.

Check if the application works fine on the original virtual machine. If there are problems with application before the virtual machine is backed up then these problems will also appear when the virtual machine is restored.

The snapshot that is used to create a backup is created using the VMware API. It also uses the VMware Tools to create a snapshot inside the virtual machine to back up the VSS-aware applications. The user should check that the latest VMware tools are installed inside the virtual machine.

Check all the partitions inside the recovered virtual machine for errors using chkdsk utility: go to command prompt (Start -> run -> cmd) and enter the following command: "chkdsk VOLUME /f" where VOLUME is the volume letter you need to check. Please note, that checking the C: drive may require you to reboot the machine.

Check that the environment where the application should be used has not been changed after the backup was created. There are applications that depend on the environment that were used. So if the environment is changed and they cannot access the data then the application may fail to work properly. For example recovering the virtual machine with the application that depends on the resources stored on network machines. This application may fail to start properly if the required resources are not available after restore operation is finished and virtual machine is started.